LOVERS OF NATURE 211 



ties, namely, that the reason why we never see 

 any small turtles about the fields is because for 

 two or three years the young turtles bury them- 

 selves in the ground and keep quite hidden from 

 sight, had used his eyes to some purpose. 

 This was a real observation. 



Just as a skilled physician, in diagnosing a 

 case, picks out the significant symptoms and 

 separates them from the rest, so the real ob- 

 server, with eye and ear, seizes what is novel 

 and characteristic in the scenes about him. 

 His attention goes through the play at the sur- 

 face and reaches the rarer incidents beneath or 

 beyond. 



Richard JefFeries was not strictly an obser- 

 ver; he was a loving and sympathetic spectator 

 of the nature about him, a poet if you please, 

 but he tells us little that is memorable or sug- 

 gestive. His best books are such as the 

 "Gamekeeper at Home," and the "Amateur 

 Poacher,'' where the human element is brought 

 in, and the descriptions of nature are relieved 

 by racy bits of character drawing. By far the 

 best thing of all is a paper which he wrote 

 shortly before his death, called " My Old Vil- 

 lage. " It is very beautiful and pathetic, and 

 reveals the heart and soul of the man as no- 

 thing else he has written does. I must permit 

 myself to transcribe one paragraph of it. It 

 shows how he, too, was under the spell of the 

 past, and such a recent past, too : — 



"I think I have heard that the oaks are 

 down. They may be standing or down, it mat- 



